I’m writing a piece called “10,000 years of speed bumps,” and I accidentally clicked the Publish button midway through it, and then kept writing.
So if you were one of the 46 people who apparently read it … ahem. I have no idea what you read, but it wasn’t finished. Pretend you never saw it, and I’ll post the completed piece soon. Sorry about that.
(I’m just glad I didn’t write a piece on Dick Cheney, and accidentally post it before I’d edited out the several dozen f-bombs.)
One of the cool things about WordPress, and CSS, is that the content of a web site is separate from the formatting instructions. Which means you can change the site layout in seconds, simply by dropping in a new format — called a “theme.”
You’re seeing it here in FreeThought Blogs’ airy new appearance. The left sidebar has vanished, and a few new things are happening on the right sidebar.
One thing to notice is the tabbed boxes in the right column. Comments and Archives now share a box with Recent Posts, via tabs on the top. You can alternate between FTB Recent Posts and FTB Most Active in the same way.
The Comments sections have a neat new look too.
To tell you the truth, I’m still exploring it all myself, so that’s about everything I know right now, but if I discover anything especially fantastic — like a coffee cup holder that extrudes from your screen, or a one-on-one chat window with Jeri Ryan that opens anytime you visit the site — I’ll let you know.
The New Welcome Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama, is WAY more exciting than any church I ever went to!
“The mayhem erupted when the Rev. Darryl Riley told minister of music Simone Moore that he was no longer needed and gave him a final paycheck, the Sheriff’s Office reported.
“Moore disagreed with the amount of the check and an argument broke out, in which Moore wielded a Taser gun, according to the account given to deputies.”
The brawl spread among the godly congregation, and the music minister’s mother even suffered a slashing requiring surgery after Deacon Harvey Hunt reportedly leaped into the fray with a pocket knife. In all, six parishioners wound up at the hospital.
Tasers! Knife slashings! Blood spatters! That there is some kick-ass Sunday services.
[This is from a few years back.]
It’s spring in the High Sierra, and I’m on vacation from New York. I’ve come back to walk old trails again, trails both of terrain and of memory, and I’m out doing one of my favorite things in the world – taking a dog for a hike out along Convict Creek.
My dog-friends Ranger the Valiant Warrior and Tito the Mighty Hunter can’t be with me, but I do have Chardonnay along, a happy-airhead golden retriever.
I stopped by to pick him up a short time before, and I was shocked at his appearance. He looks like an anatomical study: Canine Skeleton. Continue reading “Erosion: Chardy At The End of His Life”
New York Mayor Bloomberg successfully resisted pressure from religious groups, and held a secular remembrance for the families of 9/11 victims.
Predictably, the godder reaction was outrage. Failing to invite them is the same as attacking them. According to Richard Land, who leads the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention:
Nobody was turning religious leaders away from the scene 10 years ago. Why are they being banned from the 10th anniversary? The only answer, pure and simple, is anti-religious prejudice. Continue reading “God-Goggles. Kinda Like Beer-Goggles, Only Whinier. (video)”
On the “that malignant fool George W. Bush” theme again:
Think Progress has a piece titled “The $1.2 Trillion Trap: What America Gave Up For 10 Years Of War Since 9/11. Continue reading “1.2 Trillion. Goddam. Dollars.”
But the scary part is what comes out of it, and by now you have probably guessed my point. The Tea Party and things like the Tea Party. Strongly held anti-social illogical destructive beliefs with no hope of critical self evaluation, in a large and organized part of the population. It is obvious why this happened in the Republican Party and not the Democratic Party, but people on both sides of the political aisle have contributed. Literalist, libertarian, paranoid, self-centered, easily frightened, reactionary, sub-average in intelligence, deluded in self worth and unmovable in conviction and belief despite all evidence to the contrary.
It isn’t just that the terrorists won on that day; It is much much worse than that. First they beat us, then they recruited us to do ourselves in.
Oh, god.
I’ve challenged Camels With Hammers to a duel.
The weapon: Philosophy.
The place: The Field of Free Will.
The time: Now.
And I’M NOT READY!
With the slap of my challenge glove still stinging on his face, lightning-quick Daniel Fincke whipped out his rapier and carved a 2,600-word attack onto my chest! The agony! Continue reading “The Bite of the Camel 2”
[ Part 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 – 7 — 8 ]
The payoff of going through the transition from the House of the Tribe to the House of Humanity is very large. If we can make it across the painful threshold from our small but formerly comfortable dwelling space into this new and grander place, we gain an entire fascinating WORLD of people.
People to learn from, to visit, to photograph, to love, to sing to, to listen to, to argue with, to trade with, even to combine talents and efforts with, so as to accomplish great and noble tasks. The United Nations, the International Space Station and the Olympics are all House of Humanity works – absolutely impossible to accomplish in any smaller House. Continue reading “Earthman’s Journey – Part 8 (of 8)”
Have you ever been stabbed in the back? By which I mean, really betrayed by someone you trusted?
You feel hurt at first, but afterward angry. The level of trust betrayed probably defines the level of anger.
You get into a business deal with friends, and you later discover they’ve not only fucked you over royally, they intended to fuck you over from the beginning. Or you’re married and you find out your husband is boinking another woman. Worse, he picked up a disease from her, and has now given it to you. Unbelievably worse, that other woman was your own sister.
Yeah, like that. In either case, you’d be SERIOUSLY pissed. Continue reading “Remembering 9/11”
